The present invention relates to protocol analysis, and more particularly to adapting a user interface on a display device of a protocol tester.
European Patent Application Serial No. EP 1 128 600 A1 (U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. US 2001/0015732 A1), incorporated herein by reference and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, teaches a method for setting up a communication procedure between instances, one of which is a protocol tester. The instances involved in the communication are selected on a protocol tester, and thereafter a protocol layer is selected on the basis of which the communication between the selected instances is to take place. Further those abstract communication instances of the protocol layer that are involved in the communication are selected and the communication data are determined. On the basis of these selections the protocol tester automatically sets up a communication procedure executable between the instances, i.e., the executable script, with the selection of the abstract communication interfaces or the selection of the communication data being made graphically and with the parameters so selectable being allocated description files, which are used for setting up a communication procedure between the at least two instances. Graphical user interfaces, as are used in the aforementioned EP Application for the configuration of complex information as part of telecommunication measurement tasks, must essentially satisfy the following requirements: easy to understand, easy to control and clearly laid out while showing all configuration parameters and their dependencies. Between these requirements there is a contradiction, the solution of which determines the quality of the user interface. The number of configuration parameters, their possible values and the most diverse complex relationships in-between change when system parameters change, therefore the employment environment or the context are adjusted differently. The context in telecommunication measurement tasks is determined by the interfaces used, the hardware used (Primo or ATM, for example) or the protocol stacks used (WhitBook-ISUP Stack or IP Stack, for example). The prior art, which shows the superset of all possible configuration parameters, does not constitute a satisfactory solution.
What is desired is to simplify the configuration of telecommunication measurement tasks using graphical user interfaces.